SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — A battle is brewing in North County San Diego over a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facility proposed for a 22-acre site just outside the City of Escondido in unincorporated San Diego County near Palomar Hospital.
“The ludicrous idea of putting an energy facility like this in the middle of residences is absolutely ridiculous,” said Drew McSparron, whose home sits behind the proposed site in the Eden Valley neighborhood.
Residents are pushing back, gathering 2,500 signatures on a petition to stop the Seguro Battery Plant and lining Country Club Drive with dozens of signs adorning phrases like "Stop Seguro" and "AES Sacrifice Zone."
“It’s ridiculous to put this toxic bomb in this valley," said an unnamed resident to CBS 8 Thursday. "If you look around the valley, it’s a small valley. It’s surrounded by homes.”
The developer AES Corporation held a community outreach workshop Wednesday evening in Escondido to explain their plans to build a 320-megawatt energy storage plant. The facility would potentially tie into SDG&E’s energy grid via the Escondido substation. AES purports the energy plant would have the ability to power 240,000 homes for 4 hours if needed.
“We really do want to build these types of facilities so that we can help the State of California meet it’s clean energy goals by 2045 of having a 100% carbon free energy grid, so a project like this is very important to getting there,” said Maxwell Guarniere, Development Manager for AES, in an interview with CBS 8.
Fire danger from exploding lithium-ion batteries is a top concern for residents in surrounding communities, who already live in a High Fire Severity Zone. According to AES, millions of these types of batteries would be stacked inside storage containers throughout the facility, causing residents to worry about the risks of fires breaking out.
“I think it’s something that instills fear in all of the residents here. Our biggest concern is the fact that these lithium-ion batteries light on fire, and once they light on fire, they’re emitting toxic gases,” said Ashley Robertson Bedard, one of the local residents spearheading opposition to the proposed plant. "It’s not a matter of if, this is a matter of when, so do we sit here and wait for this to ignite on fire?"
CBS 8 found reports of fires at AES battery plants in Arizona in recent years. Last September, a fire broke out at a battery energy storage facility owned by Terra-Gen in Valley Center here in San Diego County, sparking evacuation orders. For the proposed site, AES told CBS 8 their plans include fire suppression and gas detection systems to safeguard the site.
“We’ll have a team of dedicated technicians, 8-10 of them for a project of this size that are onsite during regular business hours," said Guarniere. "They perform routine maintenance, inspections, they’ll test each individual battery on a routine basis.”
But that does little to calm the nerves of residents who say their fire evacuation routes amount to a couple two-lane roads that will surely see gridlock should a mishap occur.
“We have 4,000 residents within a close proximity of the site, 12,000 residents that use our evacuation routes. If this facility lights on fire emitting these toxic gases, nobody’s going to want to sit around and inhale these gases," said Robertson Bedard. “We’ve got two-lane ingress, egress here, so what are you going to do?"
“This is just going to be gridlock in here as we just sit in toxic gases and try to leave the area," said Kendra Correia, who lives in Harmony Grove Village. "We’re guinea pigs really when it comes to the technology of what they’re going to use."
Aside from fire concerns, residents say noise from the site would change the character of their rural community for the worse.
“Battery Energy Storage Systems are known to emit a constant buzzing noise," said Robertson Bedard. "This noise is known to cause sleep deprivation and anxiety in livestock as well as in humans."
AES told CBS 8 their plans include a 12-foot concrete block wall aimed at mitigating noise concerns as well as providing security for the site.
“Primary noise sources for a project like this are your HVAC, your chillers or your air-handling units on the outside of a container, and transformers, so you can design types of sound baffling materials around those noise sources," said Guarniere.
AES says their draft Environmental Impact Report should be released later this year. The next step after that would be a public hearing at the County’s Planning Commission before potentially being heard by the County Board of Supervisors.
CBS 8 reached out to County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, whose district includes the proposed site, and we did not receive a response.
CBS 8 asked AES for comment on past fires at their battery energy storage facilities in Arizona, and we received the following statement:
"Earlier thermal events, including those in Arizona, have reshaped the energy storage industry’s approach to BESS system design and safety. We understand the technical and safety management of thermal hazards at a much greater level of detail today. The energy storage technology planned for the Seguro project will look and operate very differently from the technology used just a few years ago and the project will be designed and tested to meet all the latest applicable codes and safety standards for battery energy storage systems."
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